Learning Chinese with Anki - How to Import a CSV File

I’ve been studying Chinese for a few months now, building on what I learned in Singapore’s school system. Unfortunately, since my family doesn’t speak Chinese at home, I struggled with the language growing up. Still, I’ve always been interested in Chinese culture and language.

While my pronunciation is decent, I realized I needed to expand my vocabulary quickly and effectively in order to actually speak conversationally. That’s where Anki’s spaced repetition system (SRS) comes in. Inspired by the Fluent Forever method, I initially created each flashcard manually. But with the volume of new words from my Chinese lessons and the batch-nature of learning vocabulary, that quickly became too slow. Now, I import vocab in bulk using CSV files, making the process much more efficient.

The Process

After every Chinese class, I open up my Google spreadsheet. The magic formula in the C column is:

=CONCATENATE("{{c1::", A2, "}}<br>{{c2::",B2,"}}")

Add the Chinese words in the A column, the English translation in the B column, and the pinyin in D.

I prefer using Cloze cards, and to have the pinyin show after reading the characters. This prevents me from relying too much on pinyin instead of recognizing the actual characters.

Download the file as csv, ideally after removing the header title row.

Click Import File and then select your Field separator. Field mapping is crucial – make sure it is set to the right columns!

Success! The new cards have been imported.

What the cards actually look like:

To reinforce memory, I usually add images directly in Anki if the words are suitable, or other words/create a sentence to add context. In this case, I changed it to 预报地震, which is to forecast an earthquake, and added a picture of an earthquake.

This method has helped me recognize words faster and recall them more naturally in conversations. If you’re learning Chinese (or any language), I highly recommend experimenting with Anki and CSV imports to speed up your progress! 🚀